Re: Letters with **three** cases?

*** T. Winter wrote:
>
> In article <42C95F68.6D@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> "Peter T. Daniels" <grammatim@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes:
> > Seán O'Leathlóbhair wrote:
> > > Peter T. Daniels wrote:
> ...
> > > I had expected that many people would have answered this one. It is
> > > "Short Message Service". This is a feature available on most or all
> > > GSM mobile (cell) phones. It is also commonly called "text". It
> > > allows you to send short (usually <= 160 characters) messages from one
> > > mobile phone to another. It is very popular in Europe and Asia but it
> > > does not seem to be popular in the USA.
> ...
> > Text-messaging is indeed not popular here.
>
> It is very popular, especially amongst the youngers (say 12 to 20 year), and

It is popular _there_. It is not popular _here_.

> I think it is also cheaper to send somebody a message than to call, especially
> when it is to another country.
>
> But (at least) in Europe cell phones are much more popular than in the US.
> In the Netherlands it has gotten to the point that many people give up
> their fixed phone line in favour of a cell phone. The reason for the

Why do you suppose that is not the case in the US? During our latest
blackout (August 2003 I think it was), millions of people without a real
phone discovered that they couldn't call anyone -- the cellphone
industry relies on the power grid in a way that the telephone system
doesn't.

> difference is (I think) the tariff structure. In the US the receiver of
> a call by cell phone has to pay a part. That is not the case in Europe,

?? Where did you hear that??

> overhere the caller pays all, and so cell phones are in number ranges
> that are different from land-line phones.

In some areas, new area codes were introduced just for cellphones (917
and 646 are some of them in the NYC area), but cellphones were also
assigned to existing area codes. But many area codes have been
introduced into areas that used to have just one. New Jersey, for
instance, used to be 201 in the north and 609 in the south, but now it
has 856, 908, and 973 as well.
--
Peter T. Daniels grammatim@xxxxxxx
.

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